Throughout history, the enduring figure of David has embodied ideas about masculinity. Deborah Nicholls-Lee investigates the man, myth, and muse.
He was only a boy, but he came to represent male beauty. His fame was such that he was forever known simply as “David”. The humble shepherd boy who defeated the Philistines’ most formidable warrior, the giant Goliath, and was later crowned King of Israel, has inspired some of art history’s most iconic works. Italy’s finest sculptors − Donatello, Verrocchio, Michelangelo and Bernini − all broke the mould with their Davids, while painters such as Guillaume Courtois, Rubens, Reni, and Caravaggio created emotive masterpieces of him in oil.
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His dramatic story and good looks, described in the Bible as having “beautiful eyes and a handsome appearance,” made him the ideal muse. In 1408 in Florence, Donatello di Niccolo di Betto Bardi, barely more than a boy himself, sculpted in marble a youthful and victorious David with Goliath’s severed head at his feet.
With the recent opening of Donatello: Sculpting the Renaissance at London’s V&A, the masterpiece comes to the UK for the first time, joining a copy of Donatello’s second and better-known David, cast in bronze 30 years later, and part of the museum’s permanent collection.
The lifelike marble David, The shapely body and slightly twisted contrapposto pose marked a departure from the rigidity of mediaeval sculpture and was an early indication that the Renaissance mission to revive the knowledge and beauty of classical antiquity was on the right track, thanks to Donatello’s groundbreaking mastery of this challenging medium.
If we admire the boy’s beauty, it is due in part to Donatello’s work’s unusual humanity. “Although idealised, the young hero has a sense of individuality,” says Peta Motture, lead curator for the V&A’s Donatello exhibition. Donatello’s sculpture “adds a psychological sensitivity” and demonstrates the artist’s “understanding of the human psyche” and “innate ability to capture a moment,” according to the curators.
When it was decided that Donatello’s marble David would not stand on a buttress of Florence’s cathedral as originally intended, but instead in the City Hall, a new role for statues as popular and political was etched in art history.
David was no longer just a religious figure after he was expelled from the church. Florence, on the other hand, became an allegory for another underdog. Against all odds, the small city state had defeated invaders from neighbouring territories. “The gods support brave fighters for their fatherland against even the most fearsome enemies,” a Latin inscription beneath the sculpture reads.
In the late 1430s, Donatello returned to the subject of David, resulting in the first freestanding nude sculpture since antiquity. Not only was the work a private commission (for Florence’s most powerful man, Cosimo de’ Medici), but its intended location in a villa courtyard meant it could be seen from all sides.
If we admire the boy’s beauty, it is due in part to the unusual humanity in Donatello’s work
After the battle, David stands on the giant’s head, holding Goliath’s mighty sword. His shepherd’s hat seems effeminate, his pose coquettish, his body childlike and his treatment of Goliath brutal. To the modern eye, it appears to be a work of contradictions, with David’s nudity denoting both purity and desire. Some critics speculate that Donatello, a homosexual living in a time when young boys were frequently courted by older men, sexualises his David on purpose, while others dismiss this interpretation as anachronistic.
Speaking to BBC Culture, Jason Arkles, a sculptor, teacher, and art historian based in Florence and host of the podcast The Sculptor’s Funeral, clearly falls into the second camp. “There is no sexual aspect other than his genitals showing,” he claims. “Without context, art is meaningless. If you don’t understand why a sculpture was created, you’re missing out on the majority of the story.” He emphasises that works of art at the time were always commissioned. “They’re not just objects of beauty or vehicles of self-expression.”
The sensual feathers running up David’s inner thigh have gotten a lot of attention, but Arkles’ explanation as a sculptor is far more pragmatic: “Donatello was creating an armature he had never seen before. It was larger and had to be completely concealed within the figure.” The wing that runs up the leg simply strengthens the sculpture’s weakest point. According to Arkles, it is highly unlikely that any artist would risk their livelihood by expressing deeply personal thoughts in a commission. Donatello was probably just “getting over a couple of technical hurdles,” he says, rather than deciding to fly his flag with this one statue out of his entire career.
Line of beauty
Sixty years later, Michelangelo would support his naked David in a comparable location by sculpting a tree stump behind one leg in an otherwise empty tableau. Goliath has vanished from the painting, and the boy hero, gathering his courage for battle, commands our full attention. Whereas Donatello’s life-sized bronze raised eyebrows, Michelangelo’s super-sized David (1501-4), the most famous David of all, elicited strong reactions when it was placed prominently in Florence’s main square.
The 5-meter-tall colossus was stoned first, and then a brass leaf garland concealing his manhood was hung around his waist. The Grand Duke of Tuscany is said to have given Queen Victoria a replica of the statue. She was so offended by its nakedness that she had a fig leaf made to cover its genitalia. The statue is now housed at the V&A, along with a plaster cast of the leaf. In fact, David’s genitals may be a deliberate desexualisation of the statue, with his unusually small penis, a deliberate attempt to downplay its sexuality.